Medicare Hospital Compare

The Medicare Hospital Compare app displays hospital-specific ratings and charges for more than 4,000 U.S. hospitals that receive Medicare payments. This information is made public by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS). Compare hospital ratings and payments to other hospitals within a region, county or state.

General Hospital Information
Medicare publishes an overall star rating for hospitals and compares the hospital to the national average for mortality, safety of care, readmissions, patient experience, effectiveness and timeliness of care. 

HCAHPS - Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems
The app displays hospital ratings for the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS). HCAHPS is a national, standardized survey of hospital patients about their experiences during a recent inpatient hospital stay.

Readmissions
The app includes information for the hospital return days (or excess days in acute care) measures, the unplanned readmissions measures, and the rate of unplanned hospital visits.

Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI)
These measures are developed by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and collected through the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN). They provide information on infections that occur while the patient is in the hospital. These infections can be related to devices, such as central lines and urinary catheters, or spread from patient to patient after contact with an infected person or surface. Many healthcare associated infections can be prevented when the hospitals use CDC-recommended infection control steps.

Complications and Deaths
The 30-day death measures are estimates of deaths within 30-days of a hospital admission from any cause related to medical conditions, including heart attack (AMI), heart failure (HF), pneumonia (PN), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and stroke; as well as surgical procedures, including cornary artery bypass graft (CABG). Hospitals’ rates are compared to the national rate to determine if hospitals’ performance on these measures is better than the national rate (lower), no different than the national rate, or worse than the national rate (higher).

Payments and Value of Care
The payment measures for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, and hip/knee replacement include the payments made for Medicare beneficiaries who are 65 years and older. The measures add up payments made for care and supplies starting the day the patient enters the hospital and for the next 30 days or 90 days for hip/knee replacement. The measures are meant to reflect differences in the services and supplies provided to patients. You can see whether the payments made for patients treated at a particular hospital is less than, no different than, or greater than the national average payment. The payments included in this measure are price-standardized and risk-adjusted.

Inpatient and Outpatient Payments
The app displays hospitals charges for inpatient and outpatient procedures and what Medicare reimburses the hospital for those services.